


Detangled, All Caught Up

by shadow_djinni



Series: All The Stars Aligned [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Grooming, M/M, Oblivious Sendak, Pining Haxus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 16:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12461346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow_djinni/pseuds/shadow_djinni
Summary: Sendak's fur is notoriously messy. Haxus grooms him and pines.





	Detangled, All Caught Up

**Author's Note:**

> Ha. Haha. Guess who's working on this gay shit instead of writing their main fic, again.

“This is getting a bit long for regulations, isn’t it?” Haxus asks, gently teasing.  His hands are buried in the thick, soft fur of Sendak’s upper back.  

Sendak hums in reply, but doesn’t speak, and Haxus trails his fingers through Sendak’s mane.  Even cropped to military regulations, Sendak’s fur is marvelously thick and wavy, and Haxus has to resist the urge to bury his face in it.  Instead, he trails his hands down Sendak’s spine and admires the way it curls around his fingers.  He does it again, grinning as Sendak purrs and arches his back into the touch.

Ostensibly, they’re in Sendak’s quarters for grooming.  Even at the military-regulated five centimeters, Sendak’s fur mats if he doesn’t groom himself daily, and he has difficulty reaching the spot between his shoulderblades.  Haxus has already seen Sendak do the walk of shame down to the med bay to get mats cut out of his fur twice, and he’s determined to prevent a third to spare Sendak the embarrassment.  Even if it means he has to groom Sendak himself.   _Especially_ if it means he can groom Sendak himself.  He digs his claws in experimentally, just barely scraping skin, and Sendak purrs louder.

Haxus begins working on the knots, slowly, gently untangling them, careful not to tug and hurt Sendak, even by accident.

“...No one’s ever done this for me before,” Sendak says, breaking the silence.  He hesitates a tick, then adds, “...Well, I don’t _remember_ anyone doing this before.”

An ache settles in Haxus’s chest.  Sendak must have been young when he came into military custody, then, if he couldn’t remember his dam grooming him.  Haxus’s dam _still_ insists on grooming him sometimes, and he’d reached adulthood seventeen cycles ago.  He can’t imagine what it must have been like to go without.

“...Do you want me to stop?” he asks cautiously, stilling his hands.

“Gods, _no_ ,” Sendak says, arching his back again, prompting Haxus back into motion.  “It feels...nice.  To have someone looking after me like this…”

He trails off, and Haxus pauses in his grooming to wrap his arms around Sendak and nuzzle the nape of his neck.  Sendak sniffles, just a little, and settles back into Haxus’s embrace.  Haxus smiles, just a little--Sendak’s trust in him always catches him by surprise--and presses his nose into Sendak’s ruff.  He’s soft, amazingly so, and he smells like conifers and dry dirt roads and an underlying musk that sends tingles right down Haxus’s spine.

Gods.  He’s so, _so_ gone for Sendak.  He knows full well he’d been interested in Sendak at first sight--Sendak is undeniably appealing, even _with_ his scar, and Haxus had been uncomfortably sexually attracted right from the start.  Actually getting to know Sendak, well, Haxus wants to shower him with affection and give him gifts to fill his sparse quarters and take him out and show him the universe and walk hand-in-hand and kiss him senseless.  He also wants to worship Sendak with his mouth for vargas and ravish him until the only word left on his lips is Haxus’s name.

And Sendak is _never_ going to figure it out.  Not for lack of trying on Haxus’s part--he’s leery of directly propositioning Sendak, for fear that he’ll think Haxus is only interested in friendship because he wants Sendak’s body--but he’s already given several more subtle signals of his attraction.  Sendak, of course, missed them completely.  That appears to be part of the problem with wanting to court an oblate: Sendak completely overlooks social cues, and Haxus is worried about driving a wedge between himself and the rest of the crew if he tries to court Sendak more obviously.  He’s already on thin ice with the other engineers after prioritizing Sendak’s company the other quintant.  He can’t afford to jeopardize his friendships with the others if he wants a decent work environment, and he’s worried about them taking it out on Sendak.

Sendak shifts uncomfortably in Haxus’s embrace, and he lets go, allowing him to sit back upright.  Haxus returns to his grooming, settles into the rhythm of it and lets himself go, stops thinking until the last knot is picked loose and the fur on Sendak’s back has smoothed out properly.

“ _There_ we go,” he says gently, and runs his hands through Sendak’s mane one last time.  “Done.”

He’s just started to pull away when Sendak whines in protest and turns around, shooting Haxus the _most_ piteous look he’s ever seen.  It’s an impressive accomplishment, given that Haxus has four younger siblings.  It’s the drooping ears that do it, and the way they push at the fur on Sendak’s cheeks, rounding and softening his features.

“You’re _leaving_ ?” Sendak asks.  He’s _clearly_ trying not to sound hurt, but his face gives him away.

“Not if you don’t want me to,” Haxus says.

Sendak’s reply is one of his rare pulsar smiles, bright and warm and sweet and utterly _devastating_ , and Haxus’s gut swoops alarmingly.  Yep, he’s got it bad--one sad look has him wrapped around Sendak’s fingers, a smile makes him weak in the knees.  He settles back onto the bunk and runs his hands through Sendak’s fur a few more times, then begins kneading at Sendak’s shoulders.  He digs his claws in just enough for Sendak to feel it but not enough to break the skin--though he wants to, wants to leave Sendak’s throat and shoulders covered with his marks--and applies most of his force with his fingerpads and palms.  The muscles under his hands are wound tight, but they loosen up under his hands.

Sendak purrs, shoulders slumping, and Haxus runs his hands up to knead at his neck, and then to scratch behind his ears.  Sendak purrs louder, vibrating under Haxus’s hands.  He grinds his thumbs at the place where cartilage meets skull, and Sendak goes limp and collapses into his lap.  He blinks slowly up at Haxus, clearly dazed, and Haxus chuckles and runs his fingers through Sendak’s ruff.


End file.
